05/02/25

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Macbeth is a ubiquitous play. Searching back through the B&B archive, I’m not entirely surprised to find that this is the ninth time we’ve reviewed a version of Shakespeare’s celebrated tragedy and I note too that there are three other related items that reference that infamous surname in the title. It’s easy to understand why it’s such a perennial. One of the bard’s most propulsive stories, it’s a lean, mean tale of aspiration and the overriding lust for power, which – in these troubled times – seems all too relevant. This Olivier-award winning adaptation, filmed live at London’s Donmar Warehouse, features David Tennant in the title role with Cush Jumbo as the manipulative Lady M. The screening we attend is sold out.

It’s a stripped-back production, freed from any issues with costuming or elaborate set design. The actors wear simple, monochrome outfits and the performance space is a stark white rectangular dais. It’s set in front of a transparent screened box, behind which other members of the cast occasionally gather, like a chorus of half-glimpsed ghosts, to comment on the action. Prominent among them is a young boy, who at one point hammers his fist repeatedly against the screen and also reappears in the midst of the final battle. His presence serves to remind me that the Macbeths have earlier lost a child – and that perhaps it is this loss that’s the driving force behind their callous bid to seize the throne and betray their former friends.

Tennant is extraordinary, speaking those familiar lines (often direct to camera, as though sharing confidential material) with such utter authority that I almost feel I’m hearing them for the first time. Jumbo is also compelling. She’s the only one here without a Scottish accent, which seems to emphasise her solitude and her distance from the other characters. Cal McCaninch is a stately Banquo, Nouff Ousellam smoulders powerfully as Macduff and it’s a delight to hear Benny Young’s cultured drawl delivering Duncan’s self-satisfied lines as he arrives at the castle where he is destined to die.

Ros Watt is a delightfully punky Malcolm and Jatinga Singh Randawa offers a rambunctious turn as the Porter. In the only scene that takes a wild swing away from what’s actually written on the page, the latter chats to members of the audience and displays all the symptoms of a man suffering from a raging hangover. It’s a gamble but it pays off. And the witches? In what might be the production’s bravest move, they are barely glimpsed in the first act, only heard in giggling off-stage asides as they arrive and depart with a flap of supernatural wings.

Gareth Fry’s sound design adds extra layers of suspense to the production (I note that the audience at the live performance all wear headphones for a truly immersive experience), while Alistair McCrae’s music offers jaunty reels, Celtic airs and, at one point, a spirited highland fling as a brief respite from that all-pervading air of menace. Director Max Webster brings all these disparate elements together to create a powerful and absorbing drama that dares to experiment with the source material. And, at the conclusion, designer Roanna Vize really does – magically – bring Birnam Wood to Dunsinane. 

The final confrontation doesn’t leave me wanting and the face-off between Macbeth and Macduff is unlike any version I’ve seen before. Of course, the only valid reason for doing this immortal story one more time is to offer audiences something new – an aim that this extraordinary production has clearly taken to its dark heart.

5 stars

Philip Caveney